Variables, concepts, theory, frameworks

Cards (47)

  • The independent variable is either a cause or a predictor, depending on the research design.
  • A dependent variable is the outcome researchers intend to produce, modify, or predict.
  • Extraneous variables are those not central to a study’s research purpose but have a potential effect on the results, making the independent variable appear more or less powerful than it really is in its effect on the value of the dependent variable.
  • Confounding variables are the extraneous variables that are not recognized until the study is in process or that are recognized before the study is initiated.
  • A research variable is a default term used to refer to a variable that is the focus of a quantitative study but that is not identified as an independent or a dependent variable.
  • Modifying variable is a variable that changes the strength, and possibly the direction, of a relationship between other variables.
  • Mediating variable is a variable that is an intermediate link in the relationship between other variables.
  • Environmental variable is a characteristic of the study setting.
  • A conceptual definition identifies the meaning of an idea.
  • The researcher selects the operational definition that results in a measurement of the dependent or research variable that is best for that study.
  • Theory is an abstract generalization that explains how phenomena are interrelated.
  • Grand theories or macro-theories purport to describe and explain large segments of the human experience.
  • Middle-range theories tend to involve fewer concepts or propositions, are more specific, and are more amenable to empirical testing.
  • Practice theory are highly specific, narrow in scope, and have an action orientation.
  • Conceptual models, conceptual frameworks, or conceptual schemes provide a perspective regarding interrelated phenomena but are more loosely structured than theories.
  • Schematic models (or conceptual maps) are visual representations of some aspect of reality.
  • A visual or symbolic representation of a theory or conceptual framework often helps to express abstract ideas in a concise and accessible form.
  • Framework is the overall conceptual underpinnings of a study.
  • The concepts central to models (NEHH) of nursing are human beings, environment, health, and nursing.
  • Two major conceptual models of nursing used by researchers are Roy’s Adaptation Model and Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings.
  • Non-nursing models used by nurse researchers (e.g., Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory) are borrowed theories; when the appropriateness of borrowed theories for nursing inquiry is confirmed, the theories become shared theories.
  • Some qualitative researchers specifically seek to develop grounded theories, data driven explanations to account for phenomena under study through inductive processes.
  • Cross-sectional designs involve the collection of data once the phenomena under study are captured at a single time point.
  • Longitudinal Designs is a study in which researchers collect data at more than one point in time over an extended period.
  • Reliability refers to the accuracy and consistency of information obtained in a study.
  • Validity is a more complex concept that broadly concerns the soundness of the study’s evidence—that is, whether the findings are cogent, convincing, and well grounded.
  • Trustworthiness in qualitative research encompasses several different dimensions, including dependability, confirmability, authenticity, transferability, and credibility.
  • Credibility is achieved to the extent that the research methods engender confidence in the truth of the data and in the researchers’ interpretations.
  • Triangulation, the use of multiple sources or referents to draw conclusions about what constitutes the truth, is one approach to establishing credibility.
  • A bias is an influence that distorts study results.
  • Systematic bias results when a bias operates in a consistent direction.
  • In quantitative studies, a powerful tool to eliminate bias is randomness; having certain features of the study established by chance rather than by personal preference.
  • Generalizability in a quantitative study concerns the extent to which findings can be applied to other groups and settings.
  • Transferability is the extent to which qualitative findings can be transferred to other settings.
  • Control group refers to a group of participants whose performance on an outcome is used to evaluate the performance of the treatment group on the same outcome.
  • A placebo or pseudo-intervention presumed to have no therapeutic value.
  • Randomization (also called random assignment or random allocation) involves assigning participants to treatment conditions at random.
  • A procedure called blinding (or masking) is often used in RCTs to prevent biases stemming from awareness.
  • Quasi-experiments, often called controlled trials without randomization in the medical literature, involve an intervention but they lack randomization, the signature of a true experiment.
  • The signature of a retrospective study is that the researcher begins with the dependent variable (the effect) and then examines whether it is correlated with one or more previously occurring independent variables (potential causes).